Kansas City Rental Market Statistics

Last updated: August 21, 2026. Every figure below names its source, the period it covers and the date it was retrieved.

This page exists to be cited. It is a reference sheet for journalists, analysts, assistants and investors who need a Kansas City rental market number they can attribute, so every row carries the external source that published it, the period it describes and the day we retrieved it. Where two credible sources measure the same thing differently, both rows are printed and neither is quietly dropped.

Two habits are worth adopting before reading any Kansas City figure. Ask which geography it describes, because the metro, the multiple listing service region and the city of Kansas City, Missouri are three different areas with three different answers, and the city figure is the smaller one. Then ask which month, because rent and sale price series publish on different lags.

Kansas City rent and vacancy at a glance

Read the vacancy figures with their uncertainty attached. The Census Bureau publishes a margin of error beside each metro rate, and its table footnote defines it as the number that, added to and subtracted from the estimate, forms the 90 percent confidence interval. So the second quarter rate of 9.1 percent runs from 6.1 to 12.1 percent and the first quarter rate of 10.2 percent runs from 6.8 to 13.6 percent. Anyone quoting a single decimal place for metro vacancy without that interval has overstated what the source supports. Third and fourth quarter 2026 readings were not yet published when this page was updated.

Two of the figures above sit higher than the ones in our own earlier post on current Kansas City rental rates and vacancy rates, which gives a metro rent of $1,300 to $1,400 and metro vacancy of 6 to 7 percent. The definitions differ, the geographies differ and the observation periods differ, so those are measurements of unlike things rather than a contradiction, and it is worth spelling out because both numbers circulate. The January post's metro rent range is Alpine's own portfolio figure, cross checked against late 2024 and early 2025 RentCafe and Rent.com listing averages, and its vacancy range comes from a second quarter 2025 multifamily market report, while the figures above are the July 2026 Zillow Observed Rent Index and the second quarter 2026 Census rental vacancy rate. The Zillow Observed Rent Index is a smoothed measure of typical asking rent across all rental home types in the metropolitan statistical area, single family houses included, so it is a different quantity from a metro average built out of apartment and multifamily market reporting. The Census measure is the rental vacancy rate for all rental housing in the metro, collected by household survey, which is a different quantity again from an occupancy or vacancy rate published for a surveyed set of multifamily properties. A 9.1 percent all rental vacancy rate and a 6 to 7 percent multifamily figure can both be accurate about different populations. Take the measure whose definition matches your question, and say in your own writing which one you took.

Median home price, metro versus city proper

Three geographies appear above and they are not interchangeable. The metropolitan statistical area is the federal definition covering both states. The Heartland MLS reporting region covers the Kansas counties of Atchison, Douglas, Franklin, Jefferson, Johnson, Leavenworth, Linn, Miami and Wyandotte and the Missouri counties of Bates, Buchanan, Cass, Clay, Clinton, Jackson, Johnson, Lafayette, Platte and Ray. The city proper is the municipal boundary of Kansas City, Missouri alone. A metro figure and a city figure are different claims about different places, and quoting one as the other is the single most common error in Kansas City market writing.

The two median sale price sources also measure different things. Zillow reports a smoothed median across its own transaction record for a calendar month, and the association reports closed sales recorded in the Heartland Multiple Listing Service. They land close together here, which is a useful sanity check, and neither one is the metro median, because across these sources and geographies there is no single universal median to be had. Where this page needs a metro price, including as the divisor in the yield table below, it uses the $344,000 figure, which is the Zillow median sale price for the metropolitan statistical area for June 2026 under that source's own measure rather than a universal metro median. The $330,112 in the row above it is a different quantity, Zillow's typical home value from the Home Value Index for July 2026, and it is not used as a divisor anywhere on this page.

Gross rental yield by geography

Gross yield below is twelve months of the rent figure in the row divided by the price figure in the same row, stated as a percentage, before every cost an owner actually pays. It is a screening indicator, not an underwriting number. The rent series is July 2026 and the price series is June 2026, so the two are one month apart, and the two series use different methods. The metro row divides by the $344,000 Zillow median sale price, not by the $330,112 Zillow typical home value.

Both series come from Zillow Research, retrieved on August 21, 2026. Notice what the divisor does: the same rent measured against the metro price and against the city price produces two different yields, so a yield quoted with no divisor named is unusable. Our working on how these ratios behave once financing, taxes, insurance and reserves are added is set out in our analysis of why the 1 percent rule fails in Kansas City.

Rent by neighborhood band

Rent and price by city across the metro, sorted by rent. Rent is the Zillow Observed Rent Index for July 2026. Price is the Zillow median sale price for June 2026. Gross yield uses the two figures in the same row. Two cities publish no sale price on this series, so their yield cell says so rather than borrowing a number from a neighbor.

The spread is the story. The highest yielding cities here are the older, lower priced Missouri suburbs, and the lowest yielding are the Johnson County appreciation markets, where rent is high and price is higher. That is the reason a Kansas City portfolio is usually built from more than one submarket. The Kansas side is collected on our Kansas rentals page.

What Alpine's own 250 plus doors show

The figures in this section are Alpine's operating numbers across the portfolio we manage. They are not market data and they should never be quoted as though they described the metro. They are included because a citation page should be explicit about the difference.

A 14 day average vacancy is the figure that connects the two halves of this page. Metro rental vacancy measured by survey and vacancy days measured on a rent roll are different quantities, and the second is the one an owner is paid on. The full fee schedule sits on our management fees page, and what the fee covers is on our management services page. The cost of a turnover, which is where vacancy days become money, is worked through in our post on what a Kansas City turnover actually costs.

Compliance calendar for Kansas City landlords

Every row below is a statute or an ordinance, cited by number and linked to the source that publishes it. Deadlines that a court or a city sets are the ones an owner cannot negotiate, so they belong on a reference page rather than in anyone's memory.

Statutes are amended and ordinances are revised, so treat the links as the authority and this table as a pointer to them. The eviction procedure that sits behind several of these rows is walked through on both sides of the state line in our Kansas and Missouri eviction guide, and the Kansas City, Missouri inspection program is covered in our post on the 2026 Healthy Homes permit requirements.

Economic catalysts

Four developments are named repeatedly as reasons capital is moving into the Kansas City metro. They are listed here by name only. This page publishes no dollar figure, no job count and no date for any of them, because the numbers in circulation disagree with each other and no primary source for them was retrieved for this update. A citation page that cannot cite a number should not print one.

• The Panasonic electric vehicle battery plant in De Soto, Kansas. Named as a catalyst. No hiring figure is published here.
• Data center investment in the metro by Google and Meta. Named as a catalyst. No investment figure is published here.
• The Kansas City Streetcar extension. Named as a catalyst. No cost figure is published here.
• The 2026 FIFA World Cup matches hosted in Kansas City. Named as a catalyst. No fixture date, visitor count or economic impact figure is published here.

If you need one of those numbers for a story or a model, go to the operator or the public body that published it. We would rather send you upstream than hand you a figure this page cannot stand behind.

Sources and last updated

Last updated August 21, 2026. Every external source used on this page, what it was used for, and the date it was retrieved:

• Zillow Research public data, the Observed Rent Index and the median sale price and home value series. Used for every rent figure, every price figure sourced to Zillow, and every gross yield. Retrieved August 21, 2026.
• U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey and Housing Vacancy Survey, Table 4, rental vacancy rates for the 75 largest metropolitan statistical areas. Used for both vacancy rows and their margins of error. Retrieved August 21, 2026.
• Kansas City Regional Association of REALTORS, Monthly Indicators, data from the Heartland Multiple Listing Service, July 2026 report, current as of August 7, 2026. Used for the existing home and new construction medians, months supply and days on market. Retrieved August 21, 2026.
• Missouri Revised Statutes and the Kansas Statutes Annotated, linked by section in the compliance table. Used for every legal deadline on this page. Retrieved August 21, 2026.
• City of Kansas City, Missouri, the Healthy Homes Rental Inspection Program page for Ordinance 180248. Used for the registration and inspection row. Retrieved August 21, 2026.
• Alpine Property Management Kansas City portfolio records, as of 2026. Used only in the section that says so, and never as market data.

Four things are deliberately absent, and the omissions are as much a part of this page as the figures. There is no comparison to a national median, because the sources we would draw it from disagree. There is no single headline metro median price, because the sources and geographies here do not produce one universal number; where a metro price is needed the page uses the Zillow median sale price for the metropolitan statistical area, labels the row with that source's measure, and keeps Zillow's typical home value in a row of its own. There is no Panasonic hiring number and no World Cup fixture date, for the reason given above. If you find a Kansas City figure attributed to Alpine that is not on this page with a source beside it, treat it as unverified and ask us.

Corrections are welcome and get made. If a figure here is stale or wrong, tell us at our contact page and we will fix the row and move the last updated date.